


Uber Birds and Harper Bees

by OtherCat



Series: Love and Marriage [1]
Category: Andromeda
Genre: Family, Humor, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-04
Updated: 2004-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harper? Forgot to read the fine print. The invitation to Tyr's wedding? Was an invitation to BE wedded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uber Birds and Harper Bees

**Author's Note:**

> Written because of certain tropes in Andromeda fanon. Various shout outs to sf writers Lois Bujold and Eric Flint.

Tyr's house (Tyr's freaking _mansion_) was quiet when Harper slipped out of the guest room he'd been occupying during his visit. The wedding had occured without the slightest hitch. Harper had managed not to embarrass either himself or Tyr and his new in-laws/allies/whatever. He'd even gotten through the weird bits--odd questions he'd been asked by the very imposing matriarch of Pride Raven-Coyote, and a little testimony he had to make about Tyr's manly bits, and his prowess as a warrior.

But now, the week long wedding party (and the weeklong recovery from the partying) was over and done with, and all the formal arrangements had been arranged, and it was time for Anasazi's Indiscretion to head off into the sunset. Tyr's new wives were nice enough, for ubers, but he was pretty sure the nice would fly south for the winter if he stayed too long.

He made it about as far as the door. Specifically, the service entry. (Which incidentally, according to the obscure customs of Serenity, was the door trusted friends entered by. People who needed to be cowed or impressed entered and exited by the main entrance.) Hypatia was leaning against the door, and looking an odd combination of bemused and indignant. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Well, the spaceport, then a liner to Marco Drift to meet with the Andromeda," Harper said. "I'm not big on long goodbyes."

"Or any goodbyes at all!" Hypatia said with a burst of irritation. "How can you leave like this! You haven't even consummated the marriage, or so much as spoken a word to any of us since the wedding! You wouldn't even set foot in the bedchamber, after we practically posted a notice requesting your presence! How can a supposed genius be so very _dense_ ?"

Hypatia was still ranting, but Harper's brain was stuck on a word. Two words. 'Consummate' and 'marriage.' He stared at her blankly, his brain having come to an complete halt. "Huh?"

"Not dense, Hypatia, simply--encumbered." Athena said calmly. Harper jumped a little at the sound of Athena's voice. He hadn't even heard the uber come up behind him, which was just plain embarrassing. "You know where he had the misfortune to grow up--"

_"How could you not know you're married!"_

"Easily enough, if your groom is too much of a stubborn idiot to explain matters to you!" Athena shot back.

"Would someone please explain what's going on," Harper asked, somewhat desperately.

Athena gently disengaged Harper's hand from his bag, took him by the arm, and led him into the mansion's huge kitchen. There was a little nook that served as an odd sort of reception/dining area. She sat him down at the table, picking a chair that faced the door. The two Niet ladies sat down on either side. "Tyr thought you'd figure it out on your own, really," Athena said.

"He wouldn't let us tell you straight out," Hypatia said irritably. "'He will either realize how we regard him, or he will not,'" she said, mimicking Tyr's voice. "I mean really, you might as well named us both Sadie Hawkins, the way we had to pursue you!"

"But I'm a human, a kludge, not even close to whatever a Uber looks for in a mate! Um. No offense."

"Such as the ability to survive, despite the odds being weighed heavily against you?" Athena inquired archly.

"Or genius level intelligence?" Hypatia asked.

"Or being a physically healthy _Niet,_ instead of a sickly _kludge_ ?" Harper shot back.

"With the proper gene therapies, that isn't even an issue," Hypatia informed him. "And anyway, we've never had those ridiculous miscengenation laws that don't do anything but make what's perfectly natural and would happen anyway illicit, dangerous, and exciting--not things which encourage an enviroment for the raising of children."

"That's kinda the point," Harper said, head still spinning.

Both ladies sneered delicately. _"Dragons,"_ Athena said, disgusted, while Hypatia made a spitting noise. "Raven-Coyote has been supplementing its genome with carefully selected Nietszchean and Human DNA for generations," Athena explained. "Our Alphas were thrilled when we recieved an offer of alliance from the Kodiak, and we," here she emphasized the 'we' so that it was clear that she was speaking of herself and her cousin, instead of the 'we' of her Pride. "Were rather intrigued that he included you in his suit--it's not a Kodiak custom, you see," she explained. Then she frowned. "And I suppose we assumed initially that the relationship was therefore a formal one, and that you yourself understood the situation."

"And he didn't truly explain the true situation, until just a week before the wedding." Hypatia sniffed. "Not even to you which was truly uncalled for."

Things were starting to come together, in an entirely new pattern, as things Tyr had said to him ( before Tyr had left, and in the letter Tyr had sent, inviting him to the wedding) suddenly made an entirely different sort of sense. The things the ladies had said to him, and the way they had said them were also a entirely different sort of sense. Oh man was he in trouble.

"I--um--married?" Why hadn't anyone told him? "I thought--Tyr didn't say when he invited me--I didn't--" And he was babbling, the ladies were probably having second thoughts about his fitness as a husband. (And a certain snarky part of his back brain wondered why he was worried about that.) "I thought he wanted me to be his best man at his wedding." Human custom, one of them, anyway. Tyr hadn't referred to him as best man though had he? Just a long spiel involving literary and mythological allusions seen from a bizarre Niet angle that made Harper's head ache. Harper had interpreted the message as one of Tyr's typical non-apologies, and an invitation to the wedding. Only, it was apparently an invitation to be wedded.

"The wording was rather precise," Athena said, with a smile that was just a few nanometers shy of a smirk. "If obscure."

"'I would have you at my side, to join with me on this--'" Harper groaned, smacking his forehead with the flat of his palm. "That asshole, I ought to..." Harper stopped himself before he could finish that statement. The ladies might take it the wrong way if they heard 'ask for an annullment.'

"If it's any consolation, you'd still be considered wedded, even if you hadn't participated," Athena said. "By Pride Raven-Coyote at least. You had a long standing relationship with Tyr, after all," Athena continued. " Jaguar has a similar custom--of secondary husbands, that is. Though usually only if the primary husband is having fertility problems."

"Or if he's simply having trouble...keeping up," Hypatia said in a faintly catty tone, and a little smirk.

"Tyr definitely doesn't have that--um." Harper felt his face heat. Hypatia giggled. Harper decided that as cute as the giggle sounded, that he'd never really be able to get used to it. "Niet" and "giggle" were two words that did not fit together. (The snarky part of his brain wondered why he thought that this marriage thing was a foregone conclusion. ) Athena, on the other hand, was smirking. "Smirking" and "Niet" did go together, though the cute little dimple that appeared when she did it, didn't.

"Now that we have that settled," Athena said in a low voice. "We should retire, and discuss--other things." The cousins were on their feet, and moving in on him in a flanking manuever that somehow brought wolves--or lionesses--to mind. Harper felt a little bit like a rabbit, something small and skittery that should be running away very fast. Right now.

"Like what? Harper said nervously, (like you don't know,) then Hypatia kissed him on the mouth. Her hand slipped around the back of his head to hold him before he even realized he was tipping his head back to meet her. It was warm, and friendly, and definitely interested, though not passionate, and said things a kiss shouldn't be able to say, but did. Before Harper had any idea of what he was doing, his hands were on Hypatia's hips, and he was standing and he had a moment of amazement that they were both the same height, with Hypatia maybe being a bit taller. (He'd thought she was taller somehow.)

Athena was behind him, moving the chair out of the way, nimble fingers loosening his clothes. "He has such fine skin," she murmured as she touched him. Harper shivered. "Scars, but no nerve damage, or pock marks from disease."

"Uber pillow talk," Harper said in a breathless, ragging tone, then squeaked as a hand investigated between his legs, and squeezed gently, but firmly.

"Hush," Hypatia murmured. "We aren't even in the bedroom yet, anyway." Harper hushed, head spinning. The cousins continued cataloging and discussing his attributes as they walked him back to the apartments that made up the family quarters of the mansion.

Harper balked at the bedroom door, lust momentarily giving way to a hazy sort of misgivings about the entire affair. (Don't say affair.) "How do I know this isn't a weird practical joke?"

He yipped, when Athena pinched him. "You choose now to be worried about tricks?" She demanded.

"Is it my fault my brains have leaked out my ears?" Harper protested as the cousins moved him toward the bed with its canopy and curtains. The bedroom was big enough to be it's own apartment, with a couch and a vidscreen in one corner, a computer console, and of course the huge bed. The room was dimly lit by a crackling fireplace, and sconces with flickering, holographic flames.

"Perhaps this will be proof enough?" Tyr said, standing in the door way, with Harper's bags. He set the bags down by the door. Harper jumped a little, tried on a glare. Tyr looked amused. "You are indeed married, and you are indeed being seduced by your co-spouses."

"And you are banished from the bedroom for tonight, Tyr Anasazi out of Victoria by Barbarossa!" Hypatia growled.

Tyr smirked. "I? I am not in the room. Indeed, I am closing the door." He closed it just before Hypatia could snatch a pillow from the bed, and throw it at him. The pillow hit the door, and then the ground. Harper could hear Tyr chuckle, as he walked away.

"Banished?" Harper asked.

Hypatia sniffed. "He made a mess, and we had to fix it. He doesn't deserve to watch." She gave him a worried look. "It is fixed, isn't it?" There was a lot in that look, that Harper wouldn't have expected to see, if he hadn't gone and fallen for the uber son of a bitch outside. Athena was waiting, watching them both. Waiting for Harper to jump one way, or the other.

Harper took a breath. "I uh, think it needs a test run, to work out the bugs, but yeah, it's fixed."

Hypatia smiled. "Good."


End file.
